Utah Republican faces backlash over post condemning Kirk Killing

[shdmn]

Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/republican-senator-mike-lee-kirk-shooting-melissa-hortman

 

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Only months ago, Mike Lee had posted disparaging tweets after Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot

 

To summarize:

 

When a Republican is shot

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A post from Lee, who joined the Senate in 2011, denounced Kirk’s murder as “a cowardly act of violence” while hailing the Turning Point USA executive director as an “American patriot” and “inspiration to countless young people”. His post also solicited prayers for the 31-year-old Kirk’s widow, Erika, and their children.

 

When a Democrat is shot

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“This is what happens,” Lee wrote in an X post, “When Marxists don’t get their way.” Attached to the post was a picture of the suspect charged in the shooting, Vance Boelter, evidently wearing a latex face mask.

Separately, under another picture of Boelter, Lee wrote, “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” which appeared to be a reference to Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election won by Donald Trump.

Lee’s allusion to Walz came as conservative influencers misleadingly suggested an alliance between the governor and Boelter. Walz’s Democratic predecessor, Mark Dayton, appointed Boelter in 2016 to a 60-member voluntary advisory board. Boelter’s appointment was renewed in 2019 by Walz, who did not know him.

 

But wait, there is more.  This is not the first time, and he was also joined by people like the convicted felon con man himself, Musk, and a bunch of other Republicans

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/16/politics/mike-lee-political-violence-claims-analysis

 

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Mike Lee, prominent Republicans leap to baseless claims about political violence – again

 

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Soon after the attack on the then-82-year-old man, misinformation flowed about Paul Pelosi and the attacker, David DePape. But it wasn’t just right-wing influencers leading the charge; it was also the likes of then-former President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and a coterie of prominent Republicans.

 

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These theories generally held or winked at the idea that the attack was a “false flag,” and/or that Paul Pelosi had been engaged in a gay lover’s quarrel – even as he was recovering from nearly being killed.

 

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Some on the modern right apparently can’t allow that someone on their side could be responsible for such violence, so they’ve again leapt to link the attacker to the other side with innuendo and falsehoods.

 

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But many on the right weren’t about to wait for all that; they tried to attach the shooter to the left – and quick.

 

And all that culminates in this.  When MAGA talks about hateful speech and violent rhetoric, they all need to look in the mirror

 

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Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah repeatedly suggested Boelter is not just a leftist but a “Marxist” and linked him to Walz in an X post: “Nightmare on Waltz Street.” Lee also wrote: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”
 

Musk, apparently unchastened by the Paul Pelosi situation, also promoted a post linking the shooter to the left, writing, “The far left is murderously violent.”
 

Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio added in his own X post about the flyers: “The degree to which the extreme left has become radical, violent, and intolerant is both stunning and terrifying.”

 

Donald Trump Jr. on Monday wagered that that shooter “went after someone that didn’t just blindly follow Democrat radical leftist dogma.” He added: “It’s scary stuff, but it seems to all be coming from the left.”

 

Influencers went even further, with some of the most prominent and recognizable ones suggesting without any evidence that Walz was somehow involved in the attack. “Did Tim Walz have her executed to send a message?,” asked right-wing figure Mike Cernovich on X.